A collage of our trip to Britain

This picture below is a collage our time in Britain.

Maintenant, nous retournons en France. (Now, we return to France.)

Last day in London

Our last day in London, we got up real early so we could visit more of the city. Previous days, we used our feet and bus to get around. Today, decided to utilize the underground.

"Please mind the gap..."

I always wanted to perform in the subway, so I decide that today would be the day. I tore up the air guitar just like Marty McFly in Back to the Future. There is nothing more liberating than shredding the air guitar. (All along the Underground, there are spots like this where musicians are paid to play by the city of London. How cool!)

Buckingham Palace and my queen to the right. Katie is holding a new thermos we bought in Salisbury. (we hadn't thought to pack our stellar ToGo Mugs) It was definitely nice to have a warm cup of joe.

The (not so) changing of the gaurd.

Me in front of the Wellington Arch by Hyde Park. and Katie, the blurry figure under the arch.

The British Library. O.K. - I know it sounds weird to go to a Library but it had multiple exihibits that included a copy of the Magna Carta, journals of Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) and Sylvia Plath (writer/poet), Jane Austen, Leonardo DaVinci, Mozart, ancient religious texts from multiple religions (including a Gothenburg Bible as well as an actual indulgence that the Catholic church sold for money in the middle ages inexchange for the removal of the purchaser's sins), and original hand written lyrics of the Beatles. No pictures allowed in the exhibit featuring these articles, but a great place to visit. Below are pictures from an exhibit on the 60's and the revolution that took place during that time.

The first station showcased these items: a Dell computer and Johnny Cash. Two definite links to my former life, Dell Inc. where I used to work and Cash, the man in black from Tennessee.

Che

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Next, we visited Covent Garden which is a place dominated by shopping, street performers and opera houses/theaters.

A look into Covent Garden.

A street magician.

Pins and Needles, Pins and Needles. Kids don't try this at home.

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The previous day, we had walked around Trafalgar Square at night which is front of the National Gallery Museum. It was closed at that time so we decided to explore the museum today. The neat thing about London is that all of the government art museums are free!! First, however, it was high time for proper English tea.

We had read that the restaurant at the National Gallery was a good place to have a proper English tea, so we stopped to partake. "Proper English tea" - Tea with cream and sugar, Scones, Clotted Cream, and Preserves/Marmalade. Tip that we learned: If you don't want to wear some preserves for the rest of the day, make sure you put the preserves on first then the clotted cream.

Another tip: When drinking the tea, extend your pinky out. ;)

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After Tea, we hit up the museum, and then headed out to get some dinner. We had a craving for some Indian food. Here a few pics snapped along the way.

Here is the restaurant where we dined. Check out part of their Pre-Show Special:

All you can eat Naan, an Indian bread!
We order our dishes and the waiter asked what size of bread we wanted. We were hungry and asked for the large. Little did we know that large meant ginormous!!!!!

and in case you're wondering, no, we did not finish it. (came kinda close, tho) :)

Razzle Dazzle... and all that jazz!! I had never seen Chicago, musical or movie, but Katie liked the movie, so we decide to hit up the show. We had gotten the tickets half price earlier at Leicester Square.

Belly full, smiling and ready for the show.

--we did respect the actors not to take pics during it, but do know that is was, according to Katie, super-fantastic, and we left singing a medley of all its catchy songs.

More London

"Please mind the gap between the train and the platform." Can't count how many times we heard this phrase, all in a lovely British accent.

Tower of London.

A look out from the Tower of London to the hill were traitors were dragged and hung, where the Gherkin building now stands (the one that looks like a rocket.)

Our tour guide was a famous "Beefeater" (no, it's not just a type of gin) which is their nickname. Their official title is Yeomen Warders. No one is 100% sure where the nickname came from but one theory stems from the fact that, as part of their payment, the Yeomen Warders were allowed to eat as much beef as they wanted from the king's table. This was especially impressive as beef was an expenisive rarity. They are also the official gaurds of the queen and the Crown Jewels. On his chest a picture of the crown and EIIR which stands for Elizabetha Regina II. Regina is latin queen. so Queen Elizabeth the II. Behind him is traitor's gate (Also, see the picture just below). Prisoners accused of treason were all brought up through the gate.

The White Tower.

The spot within the Tower's gate where ten were excuted, the most famous of them: Queen, Anne Boleyn, accused of infidelity and beheaded by a French swordsman on May 19, 1536. Legend has it that the French man was anxious to do his job and brought his sword down a little early catching the Queen off gaurd so when the executioner held up her head to show the crowd, the Queen's eyes were still moving and her lips were still framing her dying prayer. Whoa!!

Carving by prisoners at the Tower of London.

Tower Bridge.

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After Tower of London and Tower Bridge, we headed back across the river to the Southwark area of town. Here is what we saw.

"London Bridge is falling down, falling down"

The Southwark Cathedral. There has been a church on this spot for over 1000 years. Before that there was a roman villa.

Another food on the list: Cornish Pasties. Check. Kind of like a calazone only with hearty stuffings (beef and veggies, lamb and mint, etc.) instead of pizza ingredients.

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I had told Katie earlier after we went to the Bath spa that I wanted to try sensory deprivation sometime. I had heard about it in high school and was always curious. Also, later it appeared in an episode of The Simpsons, "Make Room for Lisa." So what is sensory deprivation you ask? This is how it works: You strip down, take a shower, then get into and lie down in an "isolation tank" filled with salt water that closes to remove all other stimili. The salt water is dense enough that you actually float, making you feel essentially weightless. You wear earplugs so that you cannot hear anything (and so the salt-water doesn't wreck your eardrums) and once the lid of the tank closes there is no sound and it is pitch black. With a lack of distraction, this makes your brain use parts that it doesn't usually use unless you are sleeping or in deep meditation. It also helps lower blood pressure, maximize blood flow and most of all is relaxing...I guess we experienced something somewhere inbetween what Homer and Lisa did, if you've happened to have seen this episode. If not, you can find it here: Click Here, if you want you can watch the entire episode or you can fast forward to 13:25 and watch the rest.

FloatWorks: We found a 2 for 1 coupon so we decided to try it!

No, this is not a space ship but it does look Extra-Terrestrial. This was the isolation tank. It took awhile to turn off your brain and just relax but after we did it ended up being very relaxing and calming. I took awhile to come back into the real world after.

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Since it was just around the corner, we figured why not check out Vinopolis, a new wine museum in London. It was built on the spot where they found ancient Roman wine vats from when the Romans imported wine to Londinium that they had established back around 47 A.D. Picture below.

Some big bottles worth big bucks. In the picture frame in the upper left was a picture of the most expensive bottle sold at auction of all time: Thomas Jefferson's Lafite 1787 sold for £105,000, or $160,000. Now that is an expensive bottle of wine, well by now it's just vinegar!

A cool painting showing the various chateau's of the 1855 classification of Bordeaux in ascending order from bottom to top.

Representing for all y'all back home. Yep, wine is made in Indiana (check out Oliver Winery), Tennessee (check out Chateau Ross) and Montana (Check out Ten Spoon Winery).

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

The Millenium Bridge.

Another angle of Millenium Bridge with St. Paul's in the background.

London, New Year's Day

I took this picture on the train into London. Can you name the band and album cover that featured this building??? Hint: The flying pig is missing. (The answer is at the end of this blog.)

LOOK LEFT and on the other side of the street, LOOK RIGHT. Seriously, these helped.

Some more views of Parliment and Big Ben.

A different perspective.

Big Ben and Little Ben.

Checking out the facade.

Next stop, the district of town actually called the City of London.

Conveyor belt sushi, interesting idea. The plates are price/color-coded so what you grab and eat adds up to what you pay.

St. Paul's cathedral, we arrived for the Evensong service.

A side view of the church.

I know it's a little cliche to have your picture taken in a London phone booth, but we couldn't resist.

Ice Skating at the Somerset House.

Trafalgar Square at night.

Heading back to Waterloo to catch the train. This picture taken from the Hungerford Bridge.

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O.K. so do you have any answers/guesses about the name of the band and album from the first picture? Click here for the answer.